


See No Evil

by anakuya



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Oral Sex, Prison, Smut, Survivor Guilt, Torture, Unresolved Sexual Tension, post Inquisition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-08-29 08:49:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8483104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anakuya/pseuds/anakuya
Summary: Hawke has been incarcerated for seventy-two days. Seventy-two days without sunlight, without entertainment, without a soul to talk to. It hasn't been the most exciting stay - until Cullen Rutherford walks into her cell, cuffed and beaten. Will she put aside her distaste for the commander? Will her nightmares stop?Be warned of language, graphic violence, and smut.





	1. Floral Oils

Seventy-two.

Seventy-two days listening to the scuttling of rats feet and the soft mourning of neighboring prisoners. My hands behind my head, I lounge on the scratchy burlap sack that is my bed. Legs stretch out beneath me, gray and dark from ash and dirt. I know that beneath the grime is pale skin, the color of the iridescent webbing between a salamanders toes. It isn’t the cold floors that make my stay in the prison unbearable. It isn’t the lack of sunlight or the smell of ammonia that hangs in the air. It is the absolute boredom. 

Without fail I have managed to spend each day entertaining myself in the same manner. Sometimes I’ll create stories in my head of how I could escape this place, how I could use the ham hock bone hidden between the bricks of my cell and lodge it in the groundskeeper’s throat. Sometimes I’ll pick at my split ends or scrape at the dirt beneath my nails. Occasionally I’ll do push-ups and planks when the guards aren’t patrolling outside my bars. It has been a highly uneventful stay. Until Cullen Rutherford walks into my cell, escorted by three guards. I rise immediately.

“Cullen.”

The Commander raises his eyes from his shackles to me. “Hawke? What are you doing here? We’ve had people searching for you for months.” A wicked-looking officer steps between us and begins to unlock Cullen’s shackles. He raises his brows at our exchange. Lovers quarrel?

“Ser Rutherford has been sentenced to an indefinite imprisonment for the tampering of official royal documents and the murder of Miss Evelyn Trevelyan. He will remain your cellmate until further judgement has been declared.” My eyes grow wide. My stomach turns. I stare at Cullen accusingly. He stares right back. The sound of shackles hitting the floor fill the silent cell and I am left alone with an accused murderer. 

He takes a step toward me. “Oh don’t look at me like that. You know I would never do such a thing.” He hisses.

“She’s dead?” My throat scratches at each syllable from lack of use. I don’t know what to think. The Inquisitor and I aren’t the best of friends but she is a good woman, a strong one. She didn’t ask for the life she received, none of us do… But if she’s dead…

“No! She’s very much alive. However, as much as she is alive she is just as much missing. She disappeared last week – in an attempt to seek out Solas we think.” I watch his neck redden with shame. Well, they couldn’t keep the poor woman locked up in the war room forever. 

“Then why are you convicted?” I will a cough back down my windpipe. I can’t remember the last time I voiced so many words at once. 

“I was the last one who saw her. She left a note saying she was sorry. Orlesian diplomats came searching for their beloved Inquisitor and believe they are now searching for a body. To them, the dramatic types that they are, they are searching for the body of the distraught secret lover of an elven god.” Cullen shifts on his feet. He runs a hand through his hair, making the gold curls stick up funny and lets out a frustrated sigh. Suddenly, as if just now aware of my presence, he shifts his focus. 

Silence fills the room and I can feel his eyes on me, taking in my appearance. I know what he sees. I know my body. My face is all bones, deep eye sockets, and dark circles. My arms are still thick with what is left of my muscle but the bones in my feet jut out as do the dark bruises against my skin. My trousers and tunic suddenly feel rough on my skin. I am not ashamed. This body is my home, it has survived this long. I will not be ashamed. Kirkwall’s Champion can rough it. Doesn’t mean I want to, though. 

I narrow my eyes at the commander and turn away from him, unaffected by his judgmental stare. 

“They feed us at dusk if they remember.” I sit down on my burlap sack and lean my head against the wall and look toward the ceiling. I can hear Cullen sigh and sit down on the twin sack on the other side of the cell. I take in everything around me. I am suddenly less content with the contents of this cell. I have only had two other cellmates in my time here. One, a young apostate that had tried to escape the circle, the other… Well I had only spent two evenings with him before the guards hit him in the head with a sword pommel and dragged him from his bed. I close my eyes and thumb a copper. Everything around me is abruptly harder to accept: the brick walls, the two metal buckets (one for water, the other a toilet), the bone between the bricks, the stare of a wayward commander. 

Without opening my eyes I snap, “You don’t have to stare you know. I’m not going to prod you with a pitchfork in the night.” He doesn’t respond for a moment and then:

“Have you been here the whole time? Three Months?” Ah, so he had noted the time of my absence. 

“Go to sleep, Cullen. I’m sure Leliana will have you free from here by the morning.” With that, I lie down on my mattress and closed my eyes.  
\---  
I wake up to screaming. I lift my head to see Cullen at the bars of the cell door, his arms crossed over his chest as he takes in whatever chaos is ensuing down the hall. I join him cautiously. All down the hall prisoners stand at their bars to watch a woman down the hall shriek and kick out at her pursuers. The guards grab at her feet and shoulders, trying to hold her still. 

“I didn’t do it, I didn’t take it! I didn’t take it!” She screams. I press my face to the iron bars, trying to see what the guards were searching for in her little cell. Deep within the cell stands another prisoner, a boy with curly black hair and a long scar running the length of his cheek. He watches the event unfold, urine staining the front of his trousers. He whips his head from the woman to the guards, the whites of his eyes visible from my cell. Before long a skinny man with armor that awkwardly hangs off his shoulders emerges from the cell with a black chisel. He hands the chisel to his superior.

“What is this?” The guard sticks the chisel beneath the woman’s throat. 

“It wasn’t me. Please, it’s not mine.” She pleads, tears streaking through the dirt on her face. The guard then takes her by the hair and everyone in the hall backs away from the cell bars. We know what happens next. We have all seen what happens when you steal from the mines. The guards are cruel, hungry for violence and entertainment. 

I raise my hand instinctively to guide Cullen away from the bars, save him the disgust, but quickly lower my hand when the woman begins to sob. Cullen is a grown man who has seen much. Who am I to save his soul from the terrors this Hell brings? Then I hear the sound of skin splitting on bricks, blood splat-splat-splatting on the floor each time the guard smashes the girl’s head into the wall. I stare at Cullen’s back. After an initial flinch he remains wholly still. I hear the girl’s body slump to the floor and the guards laugh at a joke their captain makes before walking out of the hallway. I know that the females body still lays forgotten in a puddle of blood. They always leave the bodies for a day or two. Cullen turns to me and I won’t let him make me feel ashamed. Ashamed for what, I don’t know. For letting myself stay in this vile place for so long, for standing quietly as young women get their heads bashed in by monsters. I will not be ashamed. I don’t want his approval. 

When I look at him I see them. I see Anders and Bethany and Fenris and everyone else he cast out as deplorables. He judged what was my family without remorse. He played a part in tearing me away from Kirkwall only to fight for a cause I didn’t care about, for people that didn’t want my help. Yet I found myself in Skyhold anyway – loose ends and debts to pay. Yeah, that’s why I went to Skyhold. 

The next three days pass in a blur. Cullen and I don’t speak. We spend the days ignoring each other. I know he’s waiting for Leliana or Josie or even Cole, but no one comes. When dinner arrives we split the bread and hard cheese and return to our cots to eat, wary of the invisible line that separates us down the middle of the cell. On the fourth day he speaks to me. 

“Why are you here?” I stop picking at my nails and look at him. His eyes bore into my face, curious. 

“I think the real question is why are you still here? Should not have Cassandra come galloping astride a massive bear to your rescue yet? Where is Bull and his chargers, mugs in hand? Surely you haven’t stayed simply to keep this shapely bottom of mine company?” I peel back my lips to reveal a wicked smile. I don’t mean to be cruel, I really don’t. Cullen just continues to watch me with skeptical eyes.

His judgement cuts into me like a sharp knife, quick and stinging and clean. I try not think about the people I left behind, the ones that either don’t know I’m gone or don’t care – but their faces fill my brain. I think of Anders, as lost as I in this big, big world. I think of Isabela and Varric and Fenris, teasing Sebastian about their pretty bartender as they gossip over a game of Wicked Grace at the Hanged Man. I think of Merrill’s pretty face, blushing over Isabela’s snide comments while Aveline rolls her eyes. My limbs suddenly feel heavier. I glance at Cullen, noting the way his eyes stare at a spot on the floor. 

“We never stopped looking for you, Hawke. There’s men out in the plains searching for you as we speak. The Inquisitor wouldn’t let it rest – your disappearance.” Silence stretches between us. I don’t want to hear about the Inquisition and her efforts to collect valuable assets. Cullen waits expectantly. 

“Go fuck yourself, Cullen.” How articulate, I think to myself. I return to cleaning my nails, keeping my hands busy to mask the soft trembling. 

Another day drags by. And another. I wake to the sound of the cell door creaking open. Before I can even rub the sleep out of my eyes I am being lifted to my feet, as is Cullen. 

“Maker, what in hell is –“ the commander begins but the same wicked looking guard captain that smashed that poor woman’s head into the wall cuts him off. 

“We require more hands in the mines. Work has gotten slow since the cold has set in – we need fresher fingers, stronger bones. You’ve gotten off easy the past few months anyway, Hawke. You knew your time would come.” Well, the poor bastard isn't wrong. I’d charmed my way out of labor work since my arrival, insisting that my pretty hands would be of little use all mangled and calloused. Granted, my palms bore many scars and were just as rough as the commanders after years of tossing daggers and wrapping pommels. They’re all too afraid to get close enough to check, though. 

The guards lead us down the hallway along with handfuls of other prisoners. Archers stand ready at every corner, swords brush my back and sides every so often as the caravan makes its way down the tunnels of the prison. Just as my heartbeat escalates at the thought of seeing sunlight, the guards lead us down a dank tunnel that reeks of mildew. After a half mile of narrow tunnels, we emerge into a giant cavern of raw silverite. The rock lines the dark walls, illuminated only by sporadically placed braziers. My awe lasts until a heavy ax is thrown into my arms by wiry looking woman I haven't seen before. Another prisoner. They – we – must mine in shifts, then. I take the ax, relishing the heavy weight of a weapon in my hand, and proceed to take the place of an old man, driving the pickax into stone. 

We continue like this for what must have been seven hours. By the time we are escorted back to our cells, my hands have regained feeling and the blisters on my palm burn and bleed. Cullen’s face indicates that he has fared no better. He stares down at his hands, rolling his fingers. The lines of his palms are black, caked with dust. The dust continues up his forearms, a soft powder atop his skin. His veins still bulge from stress and his neck glistens with sweat making the hair at the nape of his neck curl tighter than normal. He flicks his eyes to mine, meeting my stare. Shit. I hold his stare for a moment, breathing carefully out my nose before turning to the metal pale of water. We both drink deeply from it before using a cloth scrap to clean our wounds as best we can. I look down at my poorly bandaged hand and stifle a laugh. 

“Dorian would laugh at our piss poor attempt at mage-less healing methods.” I voice with a smile, thinking of the mage’s judgmental side-eye and cynical attitude.

“But the poor bastard wouldn’t even think to help us unless we boiled our skin and bathed in salts till kingdom come, first.” I laugh at Cullen’s retort, imagining Dorian’s horror if we waltzed into the gates of Skyhold, flies and the reek of sweat announcing our return before anyone even caught sight of us. 

“Please, Cullen, he clearly prefers floral oils,” I muse, referring back to a particularly drunken game of Wicked Grace in which Dorian’s face almost caught fire after Iron Bull explained in great detail the difference between citrus oils and floral oils and how the skin reacts as well as – well –

Cullen must be remembering the same thing because he breaks into a throaty chuckle that only I can hear and I can’t help but join him. I have tears in my eyes by the time we both cease our Chantry-boy laughing. I fall asleep easily that night, unaffected by the voice that haunts my dreams. 

When I open my eyes to face the day, I am very prepared to tell the day to, “Fuck off, thank you”.

I can feel my muscles tearing from the bone, can feel the torn tissue beneath my skin. I haven't been this sore since my soirée with the Arishok. Lifting myself into a sitting position, I can’t help the groan that escapes me. 

“Hawke?” Cullen inquires from across the room. I turn my attention to find him sitting on his cot, picking at a crumbly piece of gray bread. “Here.” Cullen rises from his cot, wincing at the acid in his bones and hands me a plate of bread and dried meat. I take it wordlessly. He watches me as I tear a piece off the stale loaf and chew slowly. Maker, even my jaw feels sore. I can still feel his eyes on me as I finish my measly meal. Is it dinner? I have no concept of time in this cell. No light passes the dense walls, no moon shifts and cycles, allowing me to keep track of time. Andraste’s tits, could he not stare at me like a – 

“Kirkwall’s Champion is awful sore after a day of mere mining. Makes me wonder how long you’ve been incarcerated, how long you’ve gone without using your body.”

“We’re not friends, Cullen. I don’t owe you an explanation. I don’t owe you anything.” My voice is low and emotionless. I wish my indifference was a mask. It isn’t. 

Cullen just stares at me, unaffected by my sharp retort. He studies me as if the answers to his questions lie beneath my pale freckles. His attention is broken by the sound of feet stomping down the hallway. Guards halt at a number of cell doors to collect miners. We are not exempt.

Our shift stumbles down dank hallways to the vast cavern full of silverite. I pick up a pickax before anyone can shove one in my hands. My biceps burn at the weight, protesting the grueling labor that is to come. I feel Cullen take position next to me. I clench my jaw in frustration at his audacity. So maybe I wasn’t being fair. Maybe I was being cruel and childish. Picture this: The saltiness of the sea blowing through curtains in the morning. The hearty laughter only heard in a tavern. The clinking of mugs as both friendships and bets are made. Kind blood elves. Warm mercenary bands. Witty vints. Clever writers by day and archers by night. Now call down your dark and your cold and be damned.  
\---  
Two days of mining pass before I see it. I stop mining for almost thirty seconds, staring. I can feel other prisoners begin to shift their feet, murmur to each other, unsettled by my odd behavior. My breath catches in my throat and I place my hand on the shoulder to my right, the shoulder that has grown to be quite familiar despite my best efforts to distance myself from him. 

“Cullen.” My voice cracks, my eyes never straying from the vision before me. He straightens his back, looking into the dark of the cave where my focus lay. Eighty-one days since I had seen the sky. And there it was. 

Merely two-hundred yards away, the cavern’s gaping mouth reveals a dark sky. What I had once thought were specks of silverite I now understand are distant stars. What I had thought was the heavy smell of conditioner on bowstrings is actually the smell of earth and water. The tail of the moon is barely visible, a thin crescent. A new moon has just passed, explaining my lack of observation the past three days. Everyone else in the mines seems to notice the exit as well, as the cavern becomes quiet. Everyone in the mines stills as if afraid that the sky will disappear at the blink of an eye. Before a word passes Cullen’s lips, guards shout and shove, signaling the end of shift. But I can feel them around me. I can feel the prisoners’ attention on that vast sky just yards away. I can feel the hope and sorrow and fear all clashing wildly together at the thought of a world beyond these brick walls. Before long we are shoved back into our little cells, metal doors clanging behind us. 

As soon as the sound of footsteps melt into silence, Cullen turns to me. “I think you inspired a lot of people tonight. Showed them that there’s still a world out there, regardless if you meant to or not.”

I don’t respond for a moment. I consider blowing him off, firing a quick insult to reestablish the rift between us but I don’t see the point in doing so. Our pasts won’t change our current situation. 

“I would hope so, many of these people are kind. Many of them haven’t seen the sun in years simply for being who they are. Dalish, apostates, soldiers. They don’t deserve this life.” 

“And you do?”

I can’t speak. I can’t move. I just look at him. His brow is furrowed and his eyes search my face for an answer. I don’t know if fate brought this man to my cell, or the old gods, or perhaps a wagon and horse – but here he is by no fault of his own. We are not naïve, nor excused from our actions despite the battles we have faced. I regret that the commander and I are alike in more ways than one. We share burdens I would wish on no one. I feel the words in the back of my throat, hiding beneath my tongue, afraid of the consequences should I voice them. My chest falls and I sigh out of my nose. 

We remain silent for the remainder of the night. We wash our clothes and I pretend to direct my eyes to anywhere except for the commanders broad shoulders and strong chest. Cullen pretends to not notice. How chivalrous. After we take turns using the bucket in the corner of the cell, we both settle in for the night. I don’t know what force pulls the words off my tongue but after an hour of lying in silence, I can’t bear it.

“It’s been eighty-one days since I’ve seen the sky. Eighty-one days here, I mean.” My heartbeat accelerates at the sudden discord of my voice. What if he’s already asleep? I must sound like a fool, speaking to the walls, revealing pointless information that he probably doesn’t even care ab –

“We won’t be here much longer, Hawke. They’re looking for us.” Cullen’s sure voice interrupts my unraveling thoughts. I think we both remain awake a time more, though we lay in a comfortable silence, back to back. 

When I finally fall asleep, his voice haunts me all night, accusing me of sins that will never be atoned for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! The "call down your dark and your cold and be damned" line is entirely Cormac McCarthy's.


	2. Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawke is plagued with nightmares of her past. No one can change what happened, not even Cullen. The pair grow closer whether they like it or not.

My heart flutters in my chest as we walk down to the mines. I long for a bird to fly into the great cavern, or a gust of sea air to rush by my face, or even for the symphony of rustling leaves over the cacophony of iron striking stone. Instead, upon entering the great space, I am met with a bone chilling cold. Winter has begun to set in.

As we shoulder our picks and hammer stone I try to keep my attention away from the gaping exit. No light comes through the cave's wide mouth. Either the moon hasn’t risen high enough in the sky or it is overcast. I smile to myself at the idea – the world around me still changing, the stars still burning and leaves still falling. My cell, this place, is only one piece to a giant mosaic full of colors and clashing images. I pretend, just for a moment, that I don’t belong here.

I hear the next shift making its way down to the cave and I begin toward the rest of my group when I see him. The boy, skinny and curly-haired and familiar, looks around with wide eyes, fumbling with a piece of rock on the cave floor. In his hands glints a short piece of metal. I watch him cautiously, so focused that I jump at the hand on my shoulder.

“Oh! Cullen, what are you…” “Hawke, why are you…” We both stumble over our words at the same, Cullen watching me suspiciously. I have just opened my mouth, meaning to excuse myself when Cullen’s attention shifts to the scene that has captivated me so thoroughly. I follow his gaze and we both watch as the skinny young man slips a chisel in the waistband of his trousers. I suck in a breath but Cullen’s hand grips my shoulder tightly, encouraging me to stay still.

“Oi! What’re you two doing? Scram with the rest of your lot ‘fore I keep you for the next shift!” An old burly guard shouts at us from a ways down the cavern. I swallow my nerves and Cullen and I catch up with the remnants of our work shift. I train my eyes on the boy’s back the whole way to the cells. The hallways seemed bleaker somehow, dirtier. Cullen and I have just entered our cell when I see the boy slip into his own, the cell door obscuring the dried blood on the brick wall next to it. Bile rises in my throat.

I sit down on my cot and stare at the floor, afraid of what Cullen might see in my face. Suddenly, I feel afraid – afraid of what I have done, afraid I may never leave this prison, afraid of the hunger and desire for what, I don’t know, that snaked its way into my bones since the commander’s arrival. Without exchanging a word with the commander, I lie down on my cot and try to fall asleep.

 _The pair ran through tall grasses_ , _a mabari bounding at their feet. Their laughs, like chiming bells, sounded through the field. Carver Hawke chased his sister, Bethany, with a slender branch he claimed to have poked a rat with. She weaved back and forth through the plains, trying to evade her brother’s pursuit. She squealed girlishly as he approached closer and closer._

_“Carver Hawke! You get away from me right this instant!” Bethany shouted over her shoulder. Bethany had been running so fast she narrowly missed her sister leaping out of the high grasses right in front of her._

_“Gotcha!” Marian cried and Bethany jumped so high out of fright, Marian and Carver thought she could’ve reached the moon. Carver doubled over from laughing so hard, holding the stick out in front of him and wiped tears from his face. Marian hooted at the little prank, replaying Bethany’s scared face over and over again in her mind._

_“Oh, that was cruel!” Bethany cried, trying to quell her laughs and manifest an angry frown._

_“That was awesome!” Carver laughed and high-fived his older sister. All three of the Hawke children quieted down and Marian turned to Bethany, smacking a kiss on the top of her ruffled hair._

_“Karma is going to bite you two in the bum one day!”_

_“Oh, I hope it does! Maker knows I like to play rough!” Carver Hawke shouted to no one in particular._

_“Carver!” Both Marian and Bethany chastised, laughing at their shared response. The trio’s laughs began to die down, leaving only the sound of rustling leaves and the soft singing of birds. Just as Carver began to open his mouth to make another crude comment, the girls were sure, Marian shushed her siblings. When Bethany tried to ask what it was that her sister had heard, she only held a finger to her lips. Tension filled the air and Bethany looked at Carver’s frown._

_“If this is another one of your silly pranks, you should know that I will not have it! I simply will not – “_

_Bethany’s words were cut off by a large “oomph” followed by a feminine squeal from Carver when the Hawkes’ mabari hound leapt on his chest, appearing seemingly out of nowhere._ Right. Good luck. I’ll keep it off you.

_“Oh, that was awesome!” Bethany voiced, holding her stomach, laughing so hard she began to snort. Marian slapped her sister’s back, unable to contain her amusement. From the beasts wide maw oozed thick drool the color or sulfur. A particularly sticky string found its way on Carver’s cheek while the hound licked and lapped at the boy’s face._

_“Oh, gross!” Marian stated, still laughing at her brother’s poor luck. “Oh please, he had it coming!” Bethany added._

_“Alright, alright, you two have had your fun.” Carver pushed the mongrel aside and rose to his feet. The two girls continued to poke fun at their brother as they turned to walk back to their home, dog trotting at their heels. The sun had just begun to set, keeping a warm glow on the children’s faces. A light summer breeze carried the sweet smell of blooming wildflowers and fresh earth through the grasses._

_“I hope that mum made a roast tonight. Or maybe those honeyed biscuits! Dad loves those.” Bethany and Carver chatted back and forth, ranking the contents of their mother’s cooking book from I-Would-Choose-This-Over-A-Respectable-Spouse to Andraste’s-Mercy-Just-Throw-Me-In-The-Deep-Roads. Marian hadn’t been paying attention in the first place, too busy thinking about lemon cakes. However, she noted that suddenly her brother and sister weren’t at her side and had ceased talking. She looked back at the two, taking in their wide-eyes and hanging jaws._ Right. Good luck. I’ll keep it off you.

_“Well? What are you two doing? Pick your jaw off the floor or you’ll catch flies.” But her siblings hadn’t heard her. Bethany struck her arm out and pointed to the spot just above Marian’s head. “Marian! Look!” Bethany’s voice quaked. Marian’s nose filled with the rancid odor of rotting flesh and manure. She whipped around and saw what had filled her siblings’ eyes with so much terror. A monstrosity of flesh rose before the Hawke children. Its skin looked like rotted bark, human heads and arms and hair protruding from its sticky skin. The bloated slug-like monster stood so tall they couldn’t see its head. Marian took a step back toward her brother and sister and the monster let out a scream, sounding of a thousand mountains collapsing, pulling the stars from the sky with them._

_“Run!” Marian shrieked, grabbing her siblings by the wrist and dragging them out of the demons way. The trio skirted around the monster, running so fast and hard that even their poor mabari was left in the dust. The ground shook as the monster clawed after them, screaming and tearing at the earth and snapping at their backs with its rows of teeth. Each time Marian looked back the demon shifted, growing wings or waving tentacles or spitting poison or taking the appearance of a giant ogre._

_“Hurry!” Marian shrieked, feeling the monster’s breath at her back. Carver let out a grunt and collapsed to the ground, holding his ankle. Tears welled in his eyes from the pain. Bethany knelt down to her brother’s side, holding him in her arms. She began to search his face, and he began to search hers, as if the answer to their salvation lay in space between them. Marian hesitated, gauging the beasts distance. They had maybe fifteen seconds before the monster would snatch them in its great jaws._

_“What are you two doing? C’mon! We can carry him, Bethany!” Marian could hear the frustration in her voice, felt her chest cave with fear._

_“Take care of mother.” Carver looked at Hawke with sympathetic eyes._

_“Carver, what are you doing! We have to go we have to…” Marian felt her own eyes burn. Does no one hear her?! They have to run! Carver’s not too heavy and the demon is practically breathing down their necks! Why isn’t anyone doing anything?_

_“Marian…” Bethany began. “It’s okay, you can’t save us. You can’t save any of us.” Bethany finished, lifting her hand to point over Marian’s shoulder._ Right. Good luck. I’ll keep it off you.

_Marian turned to find him standing there, sword already in hand. He was always there, always dying. The demon shifted into a massive arachnid with as many eyes as it had legs. The world grew dark and cold, green mist covering the ground. The Grey-Warden stood just a meter from Marian, watching the beast, his face pale and brow furrowed. He stood tall and brave, chin an inch higher than natural, as if working to convince the world that he was ready to die._

_“Alistair.” Marian voiced softly, tasting salt on her lip. She hadn’t even noticed that she was crying. The fade surrounded them, taunting and intimidating. “Alistair, please.” Alistair turned to Carver and Bethany who just stared at him, emotionless. Carver stared at the Grey-Warden and then reached his hand out as if he were grabbing something, and brought it back to his chest, right above his heart._

_“Right. Good luck. I’ll keep it off you.” Alistair nodded to the Hawke twins. Then, he turned to Marian, gripping his sword tightly, and his face shifted. His features blurred and his jaw became a bit squarer, his nose a bit straighter, his eyes melting into a soft amber, like how a glass of brandy looks when the afternoon sun shines through the drink._

_“Cullen.” Marian’s tears fell faster now, but the commander just turned away and sprinted toward the beast with a shout – “For the Wardens!” She tried to grab at his arm, his tunic, his hair, anything, but the Commander just brushed her off and ran at the beast. Marian screamed and suddenly Carver and Bethany had their arms around her, holding her back, because she would have run and run and run all the way until she was on the beasts tongue if it meant saving him, and she screamed and kicked and cried and she didn’t care because it should have been her, it should have been her, it should have been._

“Hawke! Fuck, Hawke, stop!”

I thrashed and cried and punched at Carver and Bethany, angry at them for letting me leave him to fight alone.

“Hawke, stop! It’s me, it’s Cullen. You need to relax, you’re fine, I’m with you.” The fight inside me dies down at the sound of Cullen’s very much alive voice. I register the silence around me, look down at the body that covers mine so neatly. Cullen’s hands hold my wrists above my head, his forehead just inches from mine, his chest against mine, his hips pinning mine down. The only sound in the room that of our heavy breathing. My hair sticks to my cheeks and forehead and every inch of my body is coated in a light sheen of sweat. I don’t care that tears still stream down my face. I don’t care.

“Hawke…” Cullen begins, his voice full of sorrow and fear but before he can speak any further I slip from his grasp and push him to his back, running to the dirty metal bucket we share, vomiting what little food I had in my belly. Sweat and saliva and snot and tears all mix on my face as I empty my stomach into the bucket. I feel Cullen’s gentle hands comb the hair from my face, holding it back in a loose ponytail while he rests his other hand between my shoulder blades. I heave between sobs, trying to keep my center of gravity.

“It should have been me.” I manage between wracking sobs. I vomit again. Shit.

“What?” Cullen asks, his voice strained. “Who?”

“Alistair. It should’ve been me.” My hiccups have stopped and with my stomach empty, I gag and dry-heave but the tears silently run.

“You’re wrong, Hawke.” Cullen says, almost to himself. I trust myself enough to lift my head from the bucket and find Cullen with a wet strip of cloth to wipe my face. I drag the material over my cheeks, my lips, above my brow. But I still feel dirty, feel swollen with shame.

“Then what about Carver? And Leandra? What about the Hero of Ferelden? What happens when he never returns home to her?” I have to concentrate on controlling my breathing. This shit-storm doesn’t need me unconscious on the floor from a lack of oxygen. I sigh, defeated. “It should have been me.” Cullen holds me and leans against the wall, taking me into his arms so that my back is against his chest. His arms wrap around my middle and I hold his bicep, too tired to keep myself upright. I can feel the rise and fall of his chest beneath me. Where my back has broken out into gooseflesh from the cooling sweat on my skin, Cullen now warms with his diffusing body heat. I can barely hear him say _you’re wrong_ into my hair. I am exhausted, drained from my dreams, from my fears, from this place. I don’t know what made me confess. Maybe I wanted to scare him away – this wasn’t how things were meant to be, anyway. Maybe I wanted him to hold me closer.

“It was you this time.” Cullen goes completely still beneath me, even pauses his breathing for a quick second.

“I know.” He says and leans back further, settling in for the remainder of the night. In a few short minutes I drift into a deep sleep, cradled in his arms.

The next day at the mines is particularly taxing. Cullen and I had slept up until we were jolted awake by a greasy-haired guard, who kicked at our feet so that we may shoulder axes for a couple of hours. Thankfully the guard paid no mind to our sleeping arrangement. It isn’t uncommon for cell mates to use each other to relieve stress… Not that Cullen and I were doing anything in the realm of that! I can’t deny the alien feeling of confessing my nightmare though. Nothing has changed between Cullen and me. Nothing has changed. There isn't anything to change.

I try to drown out my thoughts with the sound of pickaxes hitting stone, tried to distract myself with the pain in my arms and core but the lack of sleep and food today are wearing on me. My breathing grows more and more labored. My muscles scream at me to stop and my head spins. Even my stomach sends sharp pains that I first register as cramps. My monthly cycle would have been a highly logical explanation to all the chaos my body was enduring, except I had stopped bleeding from malnutrition over two months ago. It isn’t until a guard enters my field of vision that I realize I have dropped my pickax entirely and now lean against a mountain of rock, hand splayed on the jagged edges for support. I lift my head to meet the guard’s eyes. I have never seen this one before. He must be new.

“What do you think you’re doing? Work too hard for a flowery thing like you?” His words have barely registered but I felt Cullen tense from a few yards away, listening in on the guards words.

“Should you find work too hard here I’m sure we can find you a spot in the barracks.” I raise my head and study the man in front of me. He is shorter than me, maybe ten years older with a crooked nose and tan skin. He looks at me with hooded eyes, a smirk still playing on his lips. He is new. He doesn’t know who I am. Doesn’t know that I could rip his throat out with my teeth or pluck his eyes from his sockets with a finger.

“Look at those pretty lips of yours, too. The things I’d do to a mouth as soft and wet as yours…” He continues. I stare at him emotionless, breathing through my nose. I keep my hand by my side, slackened, but look around to the other guards for assistance. Someone needs to take this boy away before I break his fingers. I meet an archer’s gaze, one that first escorted me to the prison.

“Lucien,” the archer beckons, “I doubt the captain would be pleased to hear you’ve been taunting the prisoners.” The cavern becomes quiet, everyone’s attention on Kirkwall’s Champion and this dirty excuse for life.

“Please, Uriel, I’m only having a bit of fun.”

“Not that one.” Uriel snaps. Smart man. With a sigh and roll of his eyes, Lucien tells me to get back to work and leaves me to mine in peace. Cullen is the first one to return to driving his ax into stone. I see a sliver of cobalt sky before we are escorted back to the cells. I barely make it to my cot before I collapse.

“Oh, that was awful.” I groan, stretching out my tight back.

“It could’ve been worse. We could’ve had a jar of bees thrown at our feet mid-mining.” Cullen retorts.

“What an odd image.” I laugh. My amusement ends when I begin to cough at the dust in my clothes and in my hair.

Cullen and I both take that as a cue to begin our routine of cleaning. We drink greedily from the bucket of clean water the guards provide, the drink spilling down our chins and cooling our necks. Then we take turns using a wet rag, wiping away the dust and sweat of the day. I take the rag from Cullen and begin to run it across my brow, down my neck, sighing at the water the runs between my breasts. I make sure to clean myself well, determined to wash away the nightmares that had come and were still to arrive. I slip the cloth over my shoulders, under my arms, down my belly, between my legs, rivulets of water trailing behind each pull of the cloth. I take a moment to let myself dry before handing the rag back to Cullen. He’s already watching, jaw clenched and eyes dark. I fight the urge to cover my body, fight the urge to redress immediately. Two years ago I would have harassed Cullen for looking at me in such a way – as if I were desirable, tempting. Now, I have to shove aside my own thoughts lest we make an even larger mess of our situation.

Cullen takes the rag, rings it out, and sets it aside. After we’re both clean and dressed, we sit in the middle of the cell, picking at our roasted rabbit leg and stale bread. Our meal from last night had gone untouched so we both treat ourselves to an extra roll and a cup of broth. The food is ashy and dry, but I am starving. I am sleepy and content after just a few sips of cold broth.

“Why did that guard stop harassing you earlier? I mean, why did the archer step in?” Cullen inquires, picking at the rabbit bone.

I think back to the day I ended up in this shit storm. It was _guards at every corner bows trained on me_ and _we’re sure your friends will come soon Serah Hawke_ and _if we give you an extra pad of hay to sleep on will you promise not to slit our throats in the pitch dark_. The guards were very well acquainted with the stories of the Champion of Kirkwall. They knew who I was before I could even utter a word.

“These men know me as the Champion of Kirkwall and not much more. They know a quarrel with me would end with a dagger in their chest.” I state simply.

“That’s it? They fear you because of a few stories that got passed around?” Cullen follows, a smirk playing on his lips.

“Well, kind of. I broke a guard’s leg after my second week here.” I chew on the inside of my cheek, recalling the sickening crunch of bone.

“And you’re still alive? What happened?”

“He had been delivering my meal of gruel when he thought that my sleeping was an invitation to my bed. Or well, hay pallet. Anyway, when I woke up to his grubby hands on my chest I kneed him in the balls so hard he bounced back and slipped on the food tray. He tumbled and split his shin right in half.”

Cullen began to cough violently, slapping his chest with a balled fist.

“Andraste! Cullen!” Before I manage to get up to save him from a very anticlimactic death, Cullen clears his throat and bursts out laughing. He holds his raw throat with one hand and uses the other to wipe at his eyes.

“Andraste – Andraste’s tits, Hawke! You practically didn’t even touch the man! You can’t tell me that the entire guard fears you after a knee to the balls.” Cullen continues to try (and fail) to quell his laughter. I find myself giggling at the scenario as well, tilting my head back with joy.

“I would’ve smashed his knee in anyway! It’s not like he didn’t have it coming! He just saved me from having to get up from my bed. And it’s not like he was going to admit to his captain that he had slipped on a plate after groping the Champion of Kirkwall! Blaming me just worked out in both our favors.”

“And the notorious Champion strikes again.” Cullen muses, shaking his head.

Our plates licked clean, only a rabbit bone left as evidence of our feast, we both busy ourselves with our cots. Though insignificant, tension breeds between us. I know Cullen wants to ask me if I need anything, if I want to pull our mats closer together or if I want to set a night watch (or day watch, considering our funny sleeping schedule) but he remains silent. I know he senses the change between us, this shift in the air. The commander and I did not get along in Kirkwall. He was an insufferable dick and I went out of my way to make his job harder. Even in Skyhold I teased him maliciously and he voiced snide comments at every opportunity – but this damnably cold place is not Kirkwall, it is not Skyhold.

Before I say something that would ruin the alliance between us, I lay down on my cot and voice a good night. I sigh and turn to the wall, trying to pretend that the commander isn’t just a horse-length away from me.

I cannot have been asleep for more than an hour when I heard him. My back still turned to him, I listen to Cullen mumble sleepily and bump softly against the wall. Unable to drive away my curiosity, I rise to look at him. His back is to me, shaking softly. I watch torso rise and fall with each shallow breath and listen to the _thud, thud_ of his knee hitting the wall slightly as he shakes. It isn’t a nightmare he’s having but I’m sure he wishes it was.

“Cullen,” I whisper, reaching my hand out to touch his shoulder. “Cullen.”

He stirs and flips over to face me, still shaking and his eyes wild. “I’m sorry” he croaks back, “I didn’t mean to wake you.” The lyrium withdrawal is taking a toll on him. Without responding I rise to my knees and pull my mat to his so that our two beds morph into one. I will my heart to stop beating so erratically and lay down next to him so that my back is to his chest. We’re just barely touching and I can sense Cullen’s discomfort behind me. I try not to grimace. So maybe the Templar doesn’t want my help, maybe he’s angry and thinks that I’m babying –

Cullen’s arms wrap around my middle, slowly, as if unsure whether the gesture is welcome. I sink into his touch, placing my hand over his, encouraging him. I only do so because I know that physical touch and reassurance help people experiencing a panic attack. Withdrawal symptoms and panic attack symptoms fall into the same category in my book. I had to lay in bed with my mother more than once, calming her mind while she gripped my nightgown, reassuring her that the world wasn’t falling beneath her feet. It is all purely clinical, what I’m doing.

Cullen takes to the gesture and holds me in full now, hands gripping my waist, body pulled tightly to his. He’s still shaking a little, still breathing funny, but I can feel some of the tension leave his core. I begin to relax as well. With a deep sigh, Cullen nuzzles his nose into my limp hair and breathes against my neck. Purely clinical.

The next night, Cullen doesn’t wait for me to come to him in the middle of the night or vice-versa. After dinner he just pulls me down with him. For the first time since leaving the Fade I think that maybe, just maybe, I can leave this place and go home again, wherever that may be. Kirkwall. Skyhold. Ferelden. I would leave this hell behind, leave my shame and my fear and the bodies I’ve buried and the people I’ve lost, and start a life of listening to Varric’s stories again and clinking drinks with Isabela and trading stories with the Bull and maybe even listening to the commander’s contented breathing in the late hours of the night.


	3. Together, Then

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen is scared, Hawke is worried, and the nightmares are replaced with something... steamier. Warnings for smut, typos that I'm sure I made, and a lil fluff that might make your heart go pitter-patter.

When we stumble down to the mines that morning, the guards are talkative, excited. They speak in hushed tones and nod their heads like school girls sharing a secret. I try to listen in and from Cullen’s curious gaze, he is too. We continue down to the mines. The closer to the cavern we get, the more guards we encounter, the more skeptical looks Cullen and I receive. When we enter the cavern, all talking ceases and the current miners look at our crew, searching our faces. They all stop looking when they find Cullen. I feel his knuckles brush the back of my hand, looking for something to reassure him that whatever is happening, we’re okay. Other than his twitching fingers, he shows no signs of his nerves and stares right back at the laborers.

“All right you gits, enough. Hand off your axes and get to it!” One of the guards bellows.

Picks and axes and shovels are handed off, and everyone resumes their soft murmuring. Cullen and I take our spots next to each other and begin to work. It is a normal shift, but I can sense the tension in Cullen’s back. We continue to mine, hour after hour. Not even the purpling sky that rises in the corner of my vision can calm my nerves. Toward the end of our shift my arms are aching and my fingers are sore from the cold. I look to Cullen and catch his gaze. His eyes are dark with worry and he takes in my skeletal hands, bruised and cut. The moment is snatched away when a guard at the head of the cave calls our shift to attention.

The sound of axes on stone ceases and we look to the guard captain. His ruddy skin and permanent frown make the twisted smirk on his face all the more disturbing.

“As the head of this foul-smelling prison, I am making the decision to share with you all the news of the world outside your dusty cages. I know some of you are here because of your affiliation with this individual. Any form of celebration, retaliation, or resistance will not be tolerated.” I can practically feel the captain’s beady eyes slide to Cullen and me. “The Herald of Andraste, Inquisitor Evelyn Trevelyan, has been officially declared dead.”

The cavern erupts into hushed whispers, into laughs, into sobs. The men and women around us stir as if waking from some drug-induced dream. I don’t know what to think, what to feel. My body is numb with shock and fear. I look at Cullen to find him still looking forward, his brow furrowed and jaw clenched.

“Cullen,” I whisper and place my hand on his arm. His muscles bunch beneath my palm and I wonder if he wants to run away from my touch. He just turns to me with wide eyes and shakes his head, fear gracing his features. “I didn’t…” He starts, but shuts his mouth and turns away to return his axe. No one tries to talk to Cullen, no guards pull him away or bring him to his knees. But they will. They will and there will be fuck-all that I can do.

When we enter our cell he begins to pace and runs his hands through his hair. I stand at the solid door of our little room, unsure of what to say. The words come out of my mouth before my brain has time to process them.

“I believe you.” I insist. He stops to look at me as if aware that I’m there for the first time since we returned from the mines. “I believe you when you say that you didn’t kill her. I believe that she’s still out there, whether she’s saving the world or hiding from it.” Cullen straightens his back and meets my eyes.

“Why are you here, Hawke?” He asks me. The question catches me off guard. I don’t know what to say, how to respond.

“I need to know why you’re here, Hawke,” he persists, “because when they take me away, no one will know that you’re here – and I need to know that you will be okay, Hawke. I need to know that one of us will make it back home – wherever that may be.” I think back to the previous night. _Kirkwall. Skyhold. Ferelden. I would leave this hell behind, leave my shame and my fear…_ But I never thought that when I left this hell, Cullen might not be next to me.

“Bad luck.” I respond. “I got caught stealing supplies from one of the war camps. One of the guards recognized me as the Champion of Kirkwall and was able to convict me for every crime I’ve committed – theft, murder, under-the-table mercenary work.” Cullen seems to relax just slightly, but resumes pacing our little cell.

I hear a small army of footsteps down the hall and I know Cullen hears them too. Then he looks at me, his eyes boring into mine. My heartbeat quickens and my eyes grow wide at the idea of Cullen being whisked away. Then Cullen grabs my face and presses me to the wall, his lips crashing to mine. A groan escapes me at the intensity of his mouth on mine. It isn’t a chaste goodbye kiss. It is the kiss of a starving man. His lips shape against mine, pulling and pushing and soft and chapped. His tongue delves into my mouth and flicks, eliciting a small moan. He presses against me harder until he’s crushing my chest and pinning my hips, and I press back, trying to soak in all of him. My hand holds the back of his neck, touching the soft curls there. Then he is ripped away from me and it takes me a moment to focus my vision.

Two guards hold his arms and I sink back against the wall. Cullen watches me for a moment, his eyes dark and sad, and opens his mouth to say something but is cut off when the two men holding him spin around and pin Cullen to the wall.

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be, boy.” One of the guards snarls. Then, they lock him into handcuffs and escort him from the cell. I still lean against the wall, looking at the spot where Cullen had just stood.

I pace all night, arms wrapped around myself. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Cullen was right. Where ever he is, whatever state he is in, I am on my own. I try not to think about Cullen. I try not to think about the way he looked at me before he grabbed my face and pinned my hips to the wall. I try to ignore the swollenness of my lips and the heat in my chest.  Shit.

I am entirely alone. If Cullen is gone and no one knows about my location… No, don’t think like that. You will not die in this place cold and alone… but I can feel my body growing weaker, my stomach smaller. I blink back my frustration. I have to eat. Okay, new objective. I sit on my cot, picking at my crumbly bread and hard cheese. Before nodding off into a fitful sleep, I lift my mattress to find the sharp ham hock bone I had kept after my second meal in this wretched place. Reassured, I close my eyes and try to silence the little voice in my head. I will not die here, cold and alone.

When I am awoken the next morning, I try to bite back the disappointment. Yesterday hadn’t been a dream. I stumble with the rest of the prisoners on our way to the cavern. I am scared. Not for my own health and well-being, but afraid of what I will find. Cullen’s head on a pike to tease me, his sword on some rapist of a guard’s hip. However, when I walk into the great cavern, nothing has changed. The first shift leaves and the prisoners around me pick up their shovels and axes and carry on as usual. I go through the motions. When my ax strikes stone, I am numb.

I am still hammering away when the shift is over. I don’t hear the guards call out or notice that the other prisoners have ceased working. All I hear is the ring of my weapon working. I strike and strike and strike, hoping the pain of labor might will some of the numbness out from of my bones.

“Shift’s over lass.” I jump at the voice and the register the tip of a sword poking my side. I hold my ax in one hand and look around me, breathless. Guards from all over the room have their bows trained on me. The guard that had spoken to me watches expectantly. My odd behavior has put them all on edge.

“Sorry.” I mumble and drop my ax. I step away from the guards and can practically hear the guards’ collectively releasing their breath. I rejoin the rest of the prisoners, making up the back of the caravan. We march back to our cells in silence. I am one of the last prisoners to enter their cell. When I do, though, I halt and stare at the man in front of me. I almost don’t recognize him, clean shaven and washed, but it’s him nonetheless. Without thinking, I run to Cullen and leap into his arms, holding him as if he might vanish before me. His arms wrap around me, steady and sure and strong.

“You smell awful.” Cullen’s voice is quiet in my hair. I laugh and pull away from him, grabbing both sides of his face and holding his forehead to mine. Our noses are inches apart and I feel his breath on my skin.

“So they didn’t hang you upside down and drain you like a pig.” I state. His honey-colored eyes flick back and forth between mine, sad and relieved, all at the same time. We pull away from each other and he tells me to clean up, I tell him to eat something. Except this time when I undress, he looks at me. I feel his eyes on me while I drag a wet rag over my skin, cleaning the day’s dust and sweat and dirt from my pale skin. I don’t confront him about it at first, but when I meet his eyes, he only blushes slightly and frowns.

“Lelianna has a party on the way.” He reveals. My surprise must show on my face because he continues. “The guard captain took me in to tell me – wanted to clean me up a bit before the party arrived. I suppose a scruffy, half-starved commander of one of the largest movements in the world just wouldn’t do. I think he’s afraid of retaliation.” He’s quiet for a moment and then proceeds to say, “Your charges have been dropped too.”

I quickly notice the small changes made in our little cell. A blanket lies on top of our joined beds. We have two pales of fresh water instead of one. A clean pair of trousers and a tunic sit folded in the corner. Even the scraps of squash and potatoes steam, warm and fresh.

“And the Inquisitor?” I ask. Cullen’s eyes cast downward and he shakes his head.

“They found remains. Or a remain. Her forearm, the mark still alive -- and her staff. Leliana wouldn’t reveal anything in the letter but she said not to think about it too much. There’s still no body.” Cullen falls into silence and watches me. I finish drying off and put on the clean trousers and shirt. So then Leliana was coming for us. I sit down across from him and gobble down the pieces of squash.

“Do you know how long until the party arrives?” I ask.

“Five days, I think.” I smile. Five days. There was a time I never thought I would leave this place. The worst part is that I was okay with that. I was ready to atone for the suffering I had caused, ready to rot in this cell. The only thing I had wanted was to see the sun again. Now I would. Parts of me were still broken. My insides were jagged and covered in mud. But I would heal. Slowly, and with Cullen’s help, we would heal.

Out of things to say and lost in our own fantasies of a life outside of this cell, we get ready for bed. We go to sleep back to back, stretched out and comfortable, unafraid of tomorrow. When I wake up, his arms are around me, pulling me to his side.

The next day we aren’t escorted to the mines. No one bothers us. All day we go back and forth, swapping stories and telling jokes.

I hadn’t even remembered going to bed until I am violently shaken awake.

“Hawke? Shit, Hawke, you were scaring me.” Cullen snaps, voice scratchy. I feel Cullen’s hand on my chest and his amber eyes search mine.

“What?” I retort. I try to remember and nothing comes. My heart pounds in my chest and a light sweat covers my body. I don’t feel upset though. I feel – _oh_.

“You were shaking and kept wriggling from me. You said my name.” Cullen’s brows furrow together and he wait expectantly for an explanation. Shit.

“I…” I look away from him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.” I mumble, hoping he will drop the subject.

“Was it the same one? The nightmare? Hawke, nothing will change if you can’t talk to me –“

“It wasn’t a… nightmare, Cullen.” I feel the heat rush up my neck, to my cheeks. He’s silent for a moment and I glance at his face, afraid of the disgust I will find there. Instead, his eyes are dark and his mouth is parted slightly. I am hyper aware of my body now. I smell the sweat and the arousal from under the blanket. Afraid to ruin what time we have left together, the time that has brought us together, I mumble an apology and pull away from his touch, beginning to shift toward the opposite side of the cell but before I make it more than an inch, Cullen pulls me back to him so that my back is flush with his chest.

“This can go one of two ways,” He breathes into my ear, “you can either tell me precisely what I was doing in this dream, or I can leave you to try and go back to sleep, wanting and desperate, knowing that I am just behind you.” He shifts behind me so that his hard length presses into my backside. Oh.

“So what’s it gonna be?” He asks, voice husky and raw.

Andraste, to think that a year ago I would have ridiculed this man in every fashion, trying to sabotage his work at every corner. I can recall him spitting in my face and talking down to me as though I was a filthy degenerate. But now – to think that he may desire me? And that I want all of him in return?

“You were touching me.”

“Where?”

“Between my legs.”

“Good.” A gentle hand splays across my belly and moves beneath my tunic, brushing the underside of my breast. With his calloused fingertips Cullen gently brushes my skin, leaving goosebumps in his wake. Another hand delves under the waistband of my trousers, rubbing against my underclothes. Desperate and hazy with desire, I open my legs further for him.

“Good girl.” Cullen grabs my earlobe between his teeth and drags his tongue along the shell of my ear. I can’t help the soft groan that comes from my lips.

“Talk to me, Hawke,” Cullen teases.

“I… I want your fingers on me.” I stammer, unable to think straight.

“They are on you, dear.”

“Maker, Cullen, I want them inside – _oh_.” Cullen’s hand dips beneath my under clothes and he presses a finger inside me, curling the digit just _so_ that I shake when he hits that delicious spot inside me. I press my backside against Cullen’s hard length, wanting more of him, wanting all of him. He lets out a primal groan when I grind against his cock.

“You’re dripping wet, Hawke.” He nuzzles into my hair and kisses my neck.

“Please, Cullen, more.”

Cullen adds a second finger, stretching my walls. I sigh at the slight pain that leaves only pleasure and want. Spurred on my Cullen’s heavy breathing at my neck, I grind back further, relishing the thickness of Cullen’s length twitching against my ass. We establish a rhythm and soon I’m practically sobbing with pleasure, my soft cries and pleas echoing off the walls of our cell.

“That’s my girl, Hawke.” Cullen coos and drives his fingers deeper inside me. Instinctively, I reach back and palm Cullen’s cock. He jerks at the sudden contact and releases a ragged breath. It takes all the willpower I have to guide his hands away from where I want them most. Free from his grip, I turn toward him. I’m surprised to see him watching me with scrutiny. His gaze is intense and almost cynical. I push away my fears. I don’t know what to expect. Sudden rejection? Anger? Then he brings his fingers to his lips and sucks them until his mouth glistens with my arousal. Then he smirks. Fucking unbelievable.

I grab his shoulders and flip us so that I’m pinning him down and kiss him deeply. He opens his mouth almost immediately and I can taste myself in the kiss. A high-pitched moan escapes me and he begins to knead my bare backside. Before he can protest, I slip down his torso and drag my tongue from his naval to the patch of hair that dips below his waistband. I palm his arousal, gripping the length through his trousers, and Cullen shakes with desire.

I drag his trousers down slowly, careful to tease him as much as possible. Cullen writhes beneath me and when his trousers are completely down, I take all of him in. He’s thick and heavy and veined and attractive in every way. A smear of cum glistens at the head of his cock and I can feel my own sex tense in desire. I drag my gaze up to his face and just as he opens his mouth to say something, I drag my tongue from the base of his cock to the slit at the top. He throws his head back and groans, gripping the sides of the mattress. I continue to suck and lick and pump, savoring the salty, bitter taste of him. I lose myself in the action, my eyelids fluttering closed and my mouth moving as though it has a mind of its own. I bob my head up and down, slurping and sucking and hollowing my cheeks. Cullen bucks into my mouth and swears. Suddenly, I’m being lifted off him and coaxed back up to his chest. I search his face, curious.

“I don’t want to spend myself upon your lips, Hawke. At least, not tonight.” Cullen says with a smile, brushing my hair behind an ear. I can’t help the smile that finds its way on my face. Cullen’s eyes flash with an emotion I can’t name. He doesn’t leave me wondering for long.

“You’re beautiful, Hawke, all of you.”

“Stop.” I don’t want to hear this right now.

“Everything you are, everything you’ve done…”

“Stop.”

Cullen looks at me with reverence, as if looking at a ghost. Before I can protest anything else he may say, he pulls me down into a kiss and my mind swirls. I would never grow tired of kissing this man. In a renewed sense of passion, we tear away the rest of our clothes and I raise myself above Cullen, the head of his cock brushing my entrance. A light pattern of gooseflesh flaws my skin and Cullen rises to kiss me as I sink on to him. He groans deeply and I grip his shoulders for support as I sink further onto his cock. Immediately, he hits the spot inside me that assures me I won’t last very long. I am drugged with desire, every sense filled with arousal. I begin to move, slowly and deeply at first.

My breaths come out heavy and hot, and there’s nothing to stop the moans that come from my lips. We move in unison and I feel Cullen move more quickly beneath me.

“Hawke,” Cullen begins, his voice hoarse and raw.

“Finish inside me, Cullen. Please.” I plead.

He flips us over and ruts into me fully now, and the pleasure that has built up inside of me is too much. I grip Cullen and ride out my orgasm, biting into his shoulder to drown out my cries. Cullen continues to pound into me erratically, and follows me into bliss with a ragged sigh.

We both lay in a comfortable silence, recovering. I lay with my head on Cullen’s chest, my arm wrapped around him and focus on the soft patterns he draws on my back with his fingertips. Everything is fine, blissfully content, except I can’t quell the thoughts that swirl in my head as my senses return to me. Without raising my head I ask the question. 

“What happens after all of this?” I cringe at the sound of my voice penetrating the silence like a dull knife.

“Hmm?” Cullen asks in return.

“What happens when we go home?” I clarify.

Cullen and I are not bound to each other. We are not these lifelong friends. There’s much of his past that I do not know, do not think I want to know – between the lyrium and the Templars and the battles. There’s much to me that Cullen hasn’t a clue about. I’ve carried the burden of my guilt and pain and fear and doubt alone since my father died. But if what Cullen says is true, he has demons of his own -- demons that I want to help him fight, demons of my own that need to be eradicated. Once, his demons may have looked like me. Now, however, we are different people. Maybe together…

“Skyhold has never been my home.”

 _Oh._ _Okay._

A stretch of silence passes between us, every second more tense than the last. I almost ask him to drop the subject.

“Where ever you are Hawke, that’s where I want to be. So long as you’ll have me.”

Together then. Together we will heal.


	4. Bad Luck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawke and Cullen stick their noses where they don't belong. No good deed goes unpunished.

When I wake up the next morning, Cullen’s strong arms still encircle me. I try to wiggle free without upsetting him too much, but I manage to wake him regardless. He blinks in confusion, looking down at my surely mussed hair and pink face. Then, a giant grin breaks across his face. His smile is all teeth and gums. I can’t help but break into a grin myself. It's almost as though his smile was bred simply by my good-morning-beautiful face – then he says:

“You mewl like a cat when you come.” He states, humor riding his voice.

“Hey!” I flick his bicep and squirm away from him, taking the blanket with me. Cullen laughs, deeply and genuinely, a sound seldom heard in these dank cells. On his back, his bare chest rises and falls with laughter. I run my eyes down his body, bare and strong, despite the past weeks.

“Do you always buck your hips and make girls gag like some chantry-boy?” I inquire, trying (and failing – _miserably_ at that) to hide my smile.

Cullen sits up and narrows his eyes, frowning in my direction like a child. Without warning, he leaps on top of me and nuzzles his face into my neck, nipping at my jaw. I giggle uncontrollably, half-heartedly trying to push him off.

“Only with you, Marian.” I tense mildly at the sound of my name passing his lips, but manage to play it off, still giggling. He doesn’t miss a thing, though, and with a sigh, he kisses my temple and moves off me. He hands me a cloth and we both clean up before dressing ourselves.

It isn’t long before we hear it.

Outside our cell, guards are arguing and shouting. Cullen and I look to each other. Then, without a word, we rise and approach the little window built into the door of our cell. Down the hall, a guard shouts at his feet, spitting and slurring every word. _Odd,_ I think _, I’ve never been hammered enough to shout at my own two feet._ Then, I see her.

A little girl with pointy ears and coiled curls stands at the guard’s feet, holding her head in her hands. Then, I see the cell that she stands at, her cellmate rapidly looking back and forth between the two, her cellmate with curly black hair and a scar running the length of his cheek. I look at the wall she stands next to, the wall stained black with old blood.

The hallway is chaotic, guards everywhere, searching the cell, the child crying, screaming in a language I don’t understand. I make out one word.

“Mama! Mama!” She cries, and with a closer look, I see a tattooed arm waving through the cell bars across from the scene. The hand grabs at the air, fingers splayed as though if she reaches far enough, screams loud enough, she might be able to touch her baby.

“Ma' da'lan!” A shrill voice calls from the shadows of the neighboring cell.

Then, it is as if I am re-watching the scene I witnessed the day of Cullen’s arrival. One of the guards, one I’ve seen many times before, emerges from the child’s cell. I already know what he’s holding. There it is: the small, dusty chisel.

I don’t even process the words before they’re out of my mouth.

“You! Gimpy arm!” I shout to the arm-sling-ridden guard just feet away from me, my voice low and controlled. He pales and makes a point to ignore me, to pretend as though he cannot hear me.

“I’ll give you six fucking seconds to open this cell door or I will snap your shin bones in half so that you can’t run away when I castrate you.” I feel Cullen’s breath at my back but he doesn’t stop me. Smart man.

“One.” I count.

“Two.” I can see all the blood draining from the guard’s face.

“Three.” I ram my knee against the door with as much force as I can muster. To be frank, I muster a lot of force. I’m pissed. My knee against the door rattles the surrounding foundation so hard that dust trickles from the ceiling.

“I need a reason! I need a reason! I can’t just release prisoners at their request! I need an excuse.” The guard bites out.

“I’m a witness. I watched the girl’s cellmate smuggle the chisel. I will testify or so help you, I will wear your teeth as a necklace when I’m pardoned in two days.” I respond. The guard jogs up to his captain and stammers out some sorry explanation. I look down the hall. One of the assholes is shoving the chisel in the child’s face now. She’s crying harder.

“FOUR.” I bellow. The guard is beginning to wave his hands now, trying to reason with his captain.

“FIVE.”

The guard sprints back to our cell and the heavy door swings open. I step out of the cell, Cullen on my heels, and am surrounded by swords. However, the guards still let me walk. The captain holds my gaze as I approach and everyone quiets down considerably. I breathe deeply. I am not afraid. I have to be smart. I am not the same Hawke as I was in Kirkwall. I am not selfish. I will not walk away from this.

“What’s this about a testimony, girl?” The captain watches me expectantly. I take in the scene around me. The asshole has his fist in the child’s hair now, ready to drag her to Maker-knows-where. I look to the mother’s cell. I can barely make out her face, desperately pressed against the bars of the door. Her jaw is clenched but she does not cry, does not scare her child by exhibiting any kind of distress. I hope to have half that strength should I ever bear children of my own.

“I witnessed the Dalish girl’s cellmate smuggle a chisel from the mines. The contraband isn’t hers.” Fuck, what am I doing? Absolving one child so another can die? The thieving boy can’t be older than eighteen. I can feel my argument die down immediately.

“Serah Hawke,” the captain grinds my name out as though it tastes of tin, “Are you expecting my men to believe an accused murdering, thieving, lying, fraud?” The guardsmen laugh raucously, thrilled at my humiliation. Play it smart, Hawke. Remember, two days. Before I can respond, Cullen pipes up.

“I watched him too. One thing to steal from the mines, another to let a child take the blame. He’s guilty, look at him.” Cullen’s voice resonates throughout the halls. He is the voice of reason, he wears the cloak of his command well. I look to the young man and his eyes are dinner saucers, white and round. The entire guard looks to the boy for an answer. The words that come out of his mouth make me grind my teeth so hard, I swear I crack a tooth.

“I didn’t steal anything. I haven’t worked the mines in weeks. It was the Dalish bitch.”

I’m seeing red now, my throat is closing and Cullen places a heavy hand on my shoulder.

“Thank you for your testimony, Hawke. Now please, go back and lie with your Commander before Leliana retrieves you both.” The captain reasons. I ignore his comment and feel my anger diminish ever so slightly.

“That’s it then?” Cullen asks suspiciously, ready throw me back into the cell before I can do further damage.

“You heard the boy, Commander,” the captain speaks condescendingly, sweetly, “It was the Dalish bitch.”

It happened faster than I thought possible, even for a rogue like myself. I lunge for a guard’s sword but I feel Cullen’s hands push me back. I manage to punch three guards and knock out one before I split my lip open and am bound with swords poking my belly.

The asshole grips the girl’s hair further, pulls her forward to gain momentum, and moves to slam her skull into the wall. Cullen reaches past the captain and me, takes the asshole by his collar and jerks him backward. Thin, skeletal fingers snag Cullen's gold hair and pull him back, increasing his momentum, obscuring his balance. Then, the guards’ head, inches above where Cullen’s hand lies, snaps backward and hits the wall with a thud. Cullen spins around to find the mother’s arm outstretched, a chunk of blond hair in her grip. She stares at Cullen with horror, with fear. Then he is being bound and restrained by six guards.

“Marcus!” The captain bellows, dropping to his knees beside the downed guard. _He doesn’t need to check_ , I think, eyes burning. _I heard his neck snap_.

“Marcus!” The captain shakes the guard, holds his face. “My cousin! Marcus, you fucking bastard!”

_Cousin._

Out of the corner of my eye I see Cullen held at sword-point, his temple slick with sweat. He tries to grab my attention desperately. I can feel his eyes burning into my face but I can’t look at him. I don’t want to see his fear because I know it will mirror my own. I look down the hall, and see the shadows of faces staring back at mine. I see the girl with pointy ears and coiled hair. She’s staring at Cullen. I think it is awe that fills her features until she begins to back away. It is fear. She is afraid of him.

They’re all afraid of him. Except for the captain.

The captain rises from his knees, shaking with rage. Tears streak his red face and I raise my eyes to his. His voice is louder and sharper than any dragon’s I have ever heard.

“Dead! I want him dead!” He bellows into the silent hallway.

“Sir, the Inquisition has pardoned –“ another guard begins, a fool if you ask me.

“Fuck the Inquisition! Fuck them all! If I can’t have his head on a spike I’ll have the entire guard fuck him until he wishes he was in the ground!” I shiver at his words, and fear roots itself in my belly. Cullen catches my attention when he surges forward, red-faced and bloody, only to be hit in the gut with a sword pommel. Cullen must have caught the captain’s attention as well, because soon he’s looking back and forth between the two of us. Then, he walks up to Cullen and squares his shoulders.

“You better pray to every god you can name that Leliana rides a fast horse.” The captain whispers something to his cronies and walks away, leaving his cousin to rot.


	5. Broken Promises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawke isn't the Champion of Kirkwall, not here, not anymore. 
> 
> Major Warnings for: TORTURE, DARK THEMES

Cullen and I are escorted to a grand room that looks as though it may have been a dining hall at some point. Stained glass windows line the walls but no light shines through. It must be night. Two columns are erected at each end of the room. I am bound to one column with heavy chains around my wrists. Cullen is bound at the other end, a hundred feet of dusty stone between us. The room is dark except for the bright moon that allows me to make out Cullen’s features. We haven’t said a word to each other, afraid the guards might twist and poison them.

Our escorts leave the room and the captain enters with a few cronies. Swinging in his hand is a dull mace. _Maker’s blood._

The captain waltzes over to Cullen, swinging the mace gingerly. I feel two guards flanking me.

“Commander, we’re at an impasse.” The captain chuckles. Cullen remains silent, his eyes trained on the floor.

“Tell me Commander, did you enjoy reading in school?” _Andraste’s tits – really? If I weren’t so wound up I would roll my eyes at the drama of it all._ Cullen remains silent. Sweat beads on my brow. I am afraid, terrified. The captain dips his hand into his pocket and the whole room fills with tension. I’m completely absorbed in the episode before me. I imagine the captain pulling out a knife or a shard of red lyrium. Instead, he pulls out a neatly folded piece of parchment.

Cullen raises his gaze to the captain’s hand and furrows his brow in confusion.

“Read this for me, Commander – or rather, read me the last two sentences of the sixth paragraph.”

Cullen looks at the captain suspiciously, and then to me. Slowly, his eyes find the paper in front of him.

 _“In approximately five days time, the Inquisition will arrive to collect Commander Cullen Rutherford, who is expected to be alive and well. Let it be known that the Inquisition also reserves the right to drop any charges and extract any other prisoners that she sees fit.”_ Cullen voices. He looks to the captain, suspicious and cynical.

The captain looks around the room with a raised brow, challenging anyone to question him.

“Yes? Yes? Right then. Well, as I have said Mr. Rutherford, pray your friend rides a fast horse.” The captain says gingerly.

Then, before I can make sense of Cullen’s panicked face, a fire poker is driven into the bone of my thigh.

* * *

The guard sits in a wooden chair next to me, cleaning his nails with a dagger. The captain hasn’t been gone for three minutes and I’ve already lost three fingernails. My thigh pulses, hot and itchy, trying to fight the infection that is sure to come. I kneel on the ground like a sinner that wants to repent. My eyes burn but I can’t cry. Not now, now yet. I can’t look at him. I can’t look at him. If I look at him it’s over. If I look at him and realize that he is alive and unhurt, I won’t be afraid of the pain anymore – I need the pain. Pain reminds you that you’re alive, common mantra, right?

The guard next to me lets out a sigh and takes my hand. I shiver at his touch and it takes everything inside me not to flinch _. This is your atonement. This is nothing compared to what Fenris went through. Nothing compared to what Anders and Merrill and Carver went through._

“Such a shame, you have pretty hands.” The guard holding my hand says. Then, without preamble, he digs his dagger beneath my nail and rips it from the surrounding skin. I grunt and hiss with pain. Before the next guard shift, all five nails of my right hand lay forgotten on the floor.

Now alone while the guards switch out, I look up. Cullen kneels across from me, straining against his chains, mirroring my own position. He looks at me, jaw clenched tight and eyes bright. I think of the mother, stuck in her cell, dry eyed as she reassured her daughter.

“We’re gonna go home, Cullen.” I break the silence, my voice surprisingly level. He just looks at me and nods, his stare intense and driven.

The next guard that comes is pissed. I don’t know what he’s heard or who kicked him in the jewels, but he is relentless. When he takes my left hand in his own, he doesn’t even offer a witty remark. He just snaps my pinky right at the knuckle so that it hangs at a funny angle. I’m able to suppress any real emotion as he snaps my fingers one by one. But when he gets to my thumb, I’m fucking floored with pain.

I cry out and my thumb pops out of its socket and practically touches my wrist. My whole hand is a swollen, purpling mess of flesh.

“ _Ahhh_ ,” I hiss, clenching my teeth.

He doesn’t stop there, though. Ten minutes later he gets up from his chair, and drives his foot into my breast. I scream with pain and slump forward. I can already feel the tissue of my breast swell and the cartilage in my chest collapse. My vision goes white and I can barely make out the sound of Cullen’s voice.

“Stop.” I lift my eyes to him and he’s straining against his restraints so hard that the muscles in his neck are jumping out. Even amidst the pain, he is beautiful. “Stop.” He pleas, breathless and angry. The guard looks at him, and turns to me. He raises a hand to my face, and I flinch back _. I will not be afraid. I will not be afraid._

He hesitates for just a moment, and the brushes my lips, swollen from biting them to repress my shouts, with the dirty pad of his thumb. Then he leaves.

“Cullen,” I whisper immediately.

“I’m going to kill every last one of them, I promise you. We’re going to ride back to Skyhold or Kirkwall or Orlais – anywhere you want – with their heads in tow.” He bites out.

“Cullen,” I insist, my voice eerily deep and quiet. He looks at me, pain flooding his eyes. “I need you to understand something. We will go home. One day left, right? When morning comes, we will leave and I will be sure to find you in my bed every morning for the rest of my life and you can look at me all you want. But right now, until that sun rises, I need you to make me a promise.”

I ponder for a moment, afraid of what the words I say actually mean, afraid of what I may be confessing. A silly, girlish part of me thinks, maybe this is happening too fast. Maybe I’m rushing into things, maybe Cullen doesn’t even care – not really. But we don’t have the luxury of time. We don’t get courtships and grand gestures. Our words: this is all we have.

I persist and Cullen’s eyes widen, afraid of what I might be asking of him.

“Until then, promise me that you won’t look up, you won’t raise your eyes from the ground until that sun comes up.” I’m desperate now. “Do not look at me. No matter what you hear, no matter what I say, no matter what, do not look at me.” _We have enough nightmares,_ is what I don’t say. He stares at me for a moment, drinking me in. I stare right back, and neither of us say it, but the understanding is there. _Spare me the pain of watching your eyes grow misty while I suffer. Respect this. Understand that watching you hurts more than all of this._

He nods and when the guard returns, he casts his eyes down.

I scream and thrash and grunt while my fingers are broken and pieces of my skin are carved away and hot coals are forced into my mouth. I wail and begin to cry when a chisel works at my shoulder, chipping away the bone and muscle and tendons until my entire arm is a bloody mess. I can’t feel my arm and my tongue is burned black and I can’t stop the tears that silently rush down my face. I look to Cullen and all I see is the crown of his head, his shoulders shaking with anger and grief. The guard must see this too because he addresses Cullen.

“You might not want to miss this one, Commander.”

Cullen shakes with some emotion that I can’t place but he doesn’t look up. I thank Andraste, or whoever might be listening. The guard shrugs and I feel a pinch in my side. Then, pain and pleasure and a surge of brilliant power crackles in my veins. The guard tosses the syringe so that it lands by Cullen. From my position I can see the bright blue residue that remains in the cylinder. Cullen just stills and continues to look down.

The guard leaves and we are left alone again. I begin to nod off, every nerve singing with pain, every limb sore and pulsing. I imagine my bones turning black and my skin melting from the muscle. Tears stream down my face and I feel my will-power slip-slip-slipping away.

Then, it’s as if I blink and dawn has broken. I shake my head, reassuring myself that this is real. The sun is rising over the horizon and illuminating the stained glass that surrounds us. At the top of one image, the glass is shattered and leaves an open window, exposing the room to patches of raw sunlight. Cullen’s blond hair shines like a crown of gold. A beam of light hits him directly, illuminating his skin.

How many days has it been now? Have I reached a hundred yet? I’ll have to tell Varric I spent one hundred days without a pint of ale.

“Cullen?” I ask gently.

“Mmmm?” He responds.

“It’s enough for me.” I say, my eyes roaming the room around me, watching the golden dawn filter through the colorful glass. A bird begins to sing a sad lullaby, as if wishing the darkness of night goodbye. I begin to cry in earnest now, tears streaming from my eyes. My voice remains steady though, betraying nothing.

“What?” Cullen bites back, as if angry with me.

“It’s enough for me. This life.” I manage.

“Stop.” Cullen’s voice cracks. I can’t stop though. I can feel it all, or rather, can’t feel it. I can’t feel my arm. I can’t feel the pain in my mouth anymore. I can’t feel the lyrium in my veins anymore, only its absence. I wonder if my skin is blue, if blue or maybe even red shards poke out from my pores.

“Why are you talking like this? Stop talking like this. Are you afraid?” He asks, accusatory and frustrated.

“Stop snapping! This isn’t your fault.” I don’t have the energy to justify my pathetic nature.

“This… It isn’t… I can’t –“ Cullen stumbles.

He stops short at the sound of the guard reemerging. He saunters with disinterest, cradling a sharp knife and a spoon. I almost voice my confusion when I realize…

“Cullen.” My voice is far-away. It echoes in my ears and shakes in the air.

His shoulders tense.

“Cullen, please.” I insist, fear creeping into my voice. I am awake now, awake and afraid and far too alive.

“Hawke, you asked me not to look at you, please don’t make this harder.” The guard is so close now, only a couple few yards from where I kneel.

“Cullen, please! I want to look at you -- I want to see your face, please!” I sob desperately. Oh no, no, no, no. _Look at me. Look at me, I want to look at you._

Cullen raises his chin and his eyes find mine. His eyes begin to shine as shock graces his features. Light shines on the top of his head, his hair a crown of gold, a crown of autumn leaves. In the light I see freckles that I have never seen before in the dimness of our cell. His lips are full and pout with grief and my finger twitches, as if trying to find its way to Cullen’s skin. He is so beautiful, so ethereal. I drink in the sight of him, drink in his shock and panic and grief and fear and wish he didn’t have to see me like this. But he does. Then, tears roll down the Commander’s cheeks. The Commander is grieving me, something I never thought I would see. One of the last things I would see.

 _Don’t say it, Hawke. Saying it makes this real. Saying it makes this sound like the end. You will not die here, cold and alone._ It has to be said, though.

 “You don’t need my forgiveness. You will never need my forgiveness because there is nothing to forgive. But I know you, Rutherford, you and I like to milk our self-pity. So you don’t need my forgiveness but you have it. Fully and entirely, Cullen. You have all of me, my forgiveness, my blessing, all of it.”

Then the guard blocks my line of sight and brings the knife to my face. Cullen screams at them to stop, screams at them to _leave her be, kill me and leave her be._

* * *

When Leliana arrives, it’s a blur of shouting and swords and the clanking of chains.

I can’t feel anything. I am fatigued, completely and utterly spent.

His arms.

That’s all I can feel. His arms wrapped around me, trying to coax the light of day back into my body after being underground for so long.

Warmth. He’s so warm. Like he brings the sunlight with him.

His lips on my skin. Kissing my own chapped ones. Kissing my bloody cheeks.

Full, I feel full, full of him, full of light. I don’t hear the words that I say. I know I say them though because he stills for a moment before gripping me tighter, holding me closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic did not turn out to be as dark and sad as I had originally written it! Part of me is sad at having to scrap the first draft but it just didn't feel right. Thanks for reading! One more chapter to go!


	6. Water

My forearms rest on the smooth wood of the heavy table, my hands wrap around my mug. The tavern is quiet tonight, no brawls, no raucous, drunken laughter. Just the soft singing of a bar maid filters through the air, gentle and soothing. The tavern is rather empty tonight, everyone making a point to return back home before the snow begins to fall too heavily.  However, I find myself here anyway.

“No one to go home to, Rutherford?” Dethas, the bartender, notes. I like Dethas, with his long horns and easy smile. He makes me feel welcome on these kinds of nights, the nights I drink a little too much or talk a little too loud.

“Nah,” I respond, “Not tonight, D.” I toss my drink back and set the empty mug on the bar.

I hate these nights – the nights when I finish correspondence letters early and have already checked weapons inventory three separate times. I don’t mind still being involved with politics and military. It’s all busy work these days, communications and sponsors. However, I do mind drinking alone in this bar, my thoughts running rampant and my memories too close to the surface.

It’s always worth it though, always worth it to walk her home rather than wait alone in an empty bed.

When the door to the tavern opens, I glance up at the hooded figure in the threshold. White snow swirls through the door, sending a chill through the tavern. When the door closes behind her, the cold drains from my bones and the fire blazes brighter. She pulls down her hood, runs a hand through her short hair, and she totters over to me as if the cold has frozen her joints. When she catches clear sight of me, her face lights up and breaks into a toothy grin. Sometimes I still look behind me, convinced that a woman like this would never gift a smile like that to someone like me.

“Sorry I’m late, Cullen, I had to finish some paperwork on a late shipment.” Hawke reasons and leans her hip on the counter. I never mind her being late, I don’t worry anymore, mostly because she tells me that if my graying hair is from worrying about her, she’ll tie me up and send me to Mother Giselle. I don’t mind her being late. I would wait up all night to walk home with her.

“Busy evening?” I inquire.

“It’s been unbelievable, actually!” She lights up, like she always does when she talks about the shop. Between my past with the Inquisition and her never-ending spoils from the days she spent in the deep roads, we could be eating cheese cubes all day on velvet sofas. However, we both could never stay still for long. She picked up a job at a little market supplier, taking inventory of wine barrels and analyzing profits and repairing old armor when she has the time.

“Don’t tell me Wastin’s bothering you with that ancient breastplate again? I told him not even a giant could hammer out that dent.” Dethas interjects, handing her a glass of the dark liquor she always orders, accompanied by a glass of water.

She looks bright-eyed and friendly tonight, even cracking jokes and responding to Dethas with a note of sarcasm. I watch her lean on the counter, watch her clever fingers thumb a copper. All her fingers tilt permanently left, sunflower stalks reaching toward an unseen sun. The backs of her hands are littered with white scars: some from skirmishes, some from clumsy missteps, at least two from the time her mabari bit her when she tried to drag him away from his dinner.

She’s stronger these days, has more skin to spare. I watch her face as she smiles and laughs at something Dethas says, (which for the record, I’m quite sure isn’t _that_ funny), and her eyepatch shifts with her expression, an extension of her body. She no longer pays much mind to the black cloth that covers her right eye, but I know the pain she still feels – not physically – when she puts it on in the mornings.

I kiss her in the dark, before she goes to bed, a question in every touch of my lips on her skin. I press a gentle kiss to her ankle.

_Does it still hurt?_

I press a kiss to the inside of her knee, sure to let my breath trail up her thigh.

_Can you still hear them? Laughing while you screamed?_

I press right on the lip of that pink scar on her thigh, the place where she shudders as if she can feel my lips on her bone, just as she did the fire poker.

_It wasn’t supposed to happen like this, you weren’t supposed to get hurt._

I trail my lips up her belly, over her breasts, to the gnarled shoulder that a skilled healer so carefully reattached to her torso.

_I love you. I love you._

I make my way up her neck and to her lips, sure to pour myself into her – my worries, my fears, my hopes. I lift my hands to her face and feel the satin of her eyepatch beneath my thumb.

_You should have killed me. I did this. I love you. I love you. I’m so sorry. I love you._

“Cullen?” Hawke, asks.

“Hmmm?” Shit, she gets mad when I stare at her like a broken doll, ceramic pieces littering the floor.

“Have you finished your drink?” She nods at my mug of ale. It’s still half full but my bones are warm and my vision is beginning to swirl. I need to stop drinking when she’s late.

“Sure, let’s get out of here.” I rise from my stool.

Leaving the full glass of liquor behind, she downs the rest of her water and rises. We walk out of the bar, bidding Dethas a warm night, and brace against the cold wind. Hawke loops her arm through mine, leaning against me as we walk through the quiet streets. Snow glistens on the ground, new and fresh and soft, a carpet for our worn and tired feet. The walk home is a series of twists and turns down little alleys, the snow covering the wildflowers that grow between the cracks of the road. Our home is just ahead, candle always burning by the front door and vines lining the threshold. It is small, with just two bedrooms, a common area, a bathroom, and a stone kitchen. It is everything she could ever want, she tells me before bed every night as she warms her hands by the ever-lit fireplace. We are just at the front step when --

Wait.

“Water?”

“Hmmm?” She responds dreamily. I disentangle myself and take a step back, looking at her curiously.

“You had water tonight. Are you ill?”

She raises her eyes to me and bites her lip, uncertain. We stare at each other for a moment, and I feel my chest swelling, my ears burning. It can’t be. She told me she didn’t think it was meant to be. I take a deep breath, as if about to plunge into the unknown.

“Are you going to have a baby?” I ask, my voice shakier than I intend. She averts her eyes in thought and when she returns them to me, her gaze is softer, her eyes lighter.

“… I think it’s a girl.”

 She thinks it’s a…?

I close the space between us and lift her up into my arms, kissing her fully on the mouth. My chest swells with pride and excitement and I don’t bother to restrain the laughter that causes me to break the kiss.

“A baby? Marian, you should have told me sooner! Maker, what are we to name her? What are we to do? I don’t know anything about babies!” She laughs at me and I laugh in return, elated. A baby. Maker, how she wanted a baby. I think back to that night, the night that I still have nightmares about, when none of us knew if she would live, let alone have a family.

The first time Marian cries since the night at the prison is the morning Gemma is born. She held the little girl in her strong arms and wept, smiling at her copper eyes and curly hair. Marian has one other child, Gideon, who also takes after his father with his light hair and gold eyes. I regret that neither of our children look like their mother, who dazzles me every time I see her.

Marian is always beaming, always kind but firm. Somedays when she rocks Gideon -- humming a familiar tune, that of a nightingale -- I am brought back to that grand ball room.

_It’s enough for me. This life._

I listen to the steady creak of the rocking chair that Evelyn sent us after announcing her own pregnancy. The silent anger and hatred I once felt for Evelyn has dissipated. Maker, how I hated her though – hated her for leaving with nothing but a note. Hated her for condemning me to the prison. Hated her for sending me to Hawke, no matter if it was indirectly. I can never forgive her for the latter though. Perhaps if I hadn’t bumped into Hawke, she would’ve made her way out on her own, whole and original. Hawke assures me that this wouldn’t have been the case and that she wouldn’t have wanted any other outcome, but I know that sometimes when she looks in the mirror, it is not herself that looks back.

 _I look like her_ , Hawke tells me, sitting defeated on the floor three weeks after our return to Skyhold. _I look like her. Like my mother._

One would think that the entire night would be burned into my memory, but my mind fails to find all the pieces. Leliana bursting through the doors, yelling at her men to uncuff me. Her men dragging Hawke’s torturer away, moments from carving out her other eye. Leliana’s confusion and revulsion at the blood, the bone, the nails. Running. I can still feel the burning in my thighs from running so hard, desperate to reach her. Holding her in my arms. Her ruined body and soul surrendering in my arms, soaked in crimson and sweat. I listen to the steady breathing of my son and can hear the words that made me a humble man, the words that made me so afraid of what I wanted the most.

_I will not have you. Not where I’m going._

I can still feel her blood running down my arms while I hold her, her heart and spirit so ready, so willing, to join Alistair and Carver and Leandra and all the people she loved before. The next few years pass too quickly, a blur of excitement and newness and love. Once every few months, old friends find their way to our front door. Our home is full of Tevinter wines and pirated baubles and thick story books. One night, eleven years after the fall of Corypheus, a thick, leather bound book finds its way onto our doorstep, inscribed,

The one copy ever written for the one and only. You will always be our Champion, dear. – V

I find Hawke sprawled on a loveseat one night, the book clutched to her chest, her face still swollen with tears. When they are older, our children will open that book and read about the Champion that their mother was. They will learn about the cold, narrow-minded Knight-Commander and the witty hero with her black braid and twin knives. They will learn about the strength and power and will that made her a legend. They will also learn of the suffering and darkness that she once feared -- and now embraces.

For now, though, she is simply their mother, a figure in their lives that I can only dream to emulate one day. For now, the neighbors will continue to send pointed looks to the messy house with too many finger-paintings and too much laughter. They will continue to whisper about the house that always smells like rising bread, continue to whisper about the man and woman seen dancing through the windows, though no music plays.

It is enough for us, this life – but it is not over.

It is just beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to anyone who stumbled here! Writing this was a cool experience.


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